Empires of the Undergrowth is an ant colony management game, in a fast-paced real-time strategy style. Empires of the Undergrowth - Lead your Ant Colony to.
#Empire of the undergrowth full#
Empire of the Ants (1977) - Full Cast & Crew - IMDb. There will be a balancing act to collecting enough of the nectar to make it worthwhile whilst being able to respawn lost ants sustainably.It currently replaces the three standard Forces of Corruption factions with the Old Republic, the Sith Empire and the Mandalorian clans. There will be a percentage chance to trigger the traps, killing any ants currently on them. The in-game mechanics of the flytrap will involve them exuding a kind of sugary nectar-like food on the traps, which will likely look similar to the honeydew globules that aphids provide. Plants that consume animals do so as an evolutionary adaptation to poor soil quality in their area, lacking in phosphorus and nitrogen.Ī closeup of a single trap, showing the tiny trigger hairs Inevitably the victim is broken down into a liquid by digestive enzymes which is then absorbed by the plant.Ī closer view of the leaf traps themselvesĭespite their name, flying insects make up a very small proportion of the plant’s diet – roughly a third of its prey items are ants. Eventually, the trap will seal, forming a kind of “stomach” in which to dissolve the prey. If more than one of these hairs is touched in a short enough space of time, the hairs will trigger a relay of chemical and mechanical actions that close the trap, and the struggling of the doomed invertebrate only makes the trap hold on tighter. The trap heads themselves are adorned with tiny, barely-visible trigger hairs. Although there are many kinds of plant adaptations that can extract nutrition from animals, such as pitchers and sticky traps, the iconic, dramatically-spiked leaf traps of the Venus flytrap are the most famous. When one thinks about carnivorous plants, the Venus flytrap is what immediately springs to mind. The rest of the team have been waiting as patiently as the rest of you have to see the results, and we think they’re stunning. We’re well into the decoration phase now, with our dedicated environment artist Dan flexing his painting muscles to give the two campaign levels of the fire ant tier their distinctive final look. This includes creatures adapted to hide amongst the traps of the meat-eating flora, such as the green lynx spider.Ī wide area with a nest in the background on level 4.1, titled “Cold Blood” (WIP) A huge variety of creatures live here, making their homes in the unique ecological niches allowed. This damp environment will have changing water levels and a variety of new resource types, such as seed-rich pinecones and nectar-like secretions from the carnivorous plants. Our small but skilled art team has been working away on the swamp environment for several months now, and we’re now at a point where we can show off some of the surface! Whilst underground is a teal-tinted world full of roots, slime moulds and other such growths, the surface is green with algae, mosses, leaves and carnivorous plants.Ī ramped area in the swamp adorned with dead wood, moss, lichen and algae We took advantage of this fact to have the narrator record some extra voice lines for a new extra level.
We can let you know that we’ve been working with the voice cast again recently, and it’s been great hearing new words from devious scientists and sombre narrators again. Expect some more firm news on this before the end of the year! Our marketing team will be getting together soon to work on some promotional material, and a short while after this we will have a much better idea of when we’ll be able to give you a date for the long-awaited update.
#Empire of the undergrowth update#
We are confident enough at this point to say that the update will come in early 2022, but exactly how early is yet to be finalised. What would appear to be an easy task ends up taking a long time, unexpected complications arise, and priorities change. Indeed these were our plans, and obviously shortly before Christmas would have been the ideal time for that – but we’ve realised that we won’t be able to hit that goal.Īs is always the case with game development and ambitious projects, pinning down how long things take is exceedingly tricky. Those of you who have been following along on our social media and particularly our Discord will probably have gotten the impression over the last few months that we intended to get the fire ant update out before the end of the year.